ELWOOD, Kan. — Despite the fact that it's the Missouri River that's causing flooding across Missouri, residents across the river in Kansas are also bearing the river's wrath.
Residents of Elwood, Kansas technically didn't have to evacuate after a voluntary order was issued Friday, but almost everyone is town has escaped.
“It’s so difficult to watch as I cross the river everyday,” resident Sarah Caraway said.
For the last several days, the Missouri River has expanded everyday, growing the fears of those who live here.
“It’s hard, it’s a little frightening,” Caraway said.
Caraway is doing what she can to fight the flood, including filling sand bags.
“It’s a bag of sand, but it’s a much larger than that because it’s the people it represents," she said. "It’s these homes that are vulnerable. More than that, it’s the people who they belong to."
She and dozens of others, including the nearby Rosecrans Memorial Airport Lift Wing, are filling sandbags in the town, to add heights to the levee.
“We think we’re in pretty good shape," Air Lift Wing Vice Commander Colonel John Cluck said. "We’re holding water back and we’re keeping the fight and we’re not coming off.”
Officials believe the levee will hold up and their efforts to keep the town dry will work.
“We would rather eer on the side of safety than not," Rick Howell with the Johnson County Emergency Management said. "If you saw what happened up river, they evacuated too late. What we want to do here is we would rather say evacuate and not have water in the town than have water in the town and it’s too late to evacuate.”
The Kansas Search and Rescue team, made up of firefighters from Johnson and Wyandotte Counties, is also ready to react if the levee breaks.
“Today, we basically went house to house and plotted anybody that’s stayed so far so we have a good idea on how to get to them if something happens,” Byron Jayne, with Task Force 3 and the Kansas City, Kansas Fire Department, said.
But what won’t break are these volunteers’ determination to keep each other safe.
“We’re still out here trying," Caraway said. "Until they sound the alarms again to say this is really for real, we have to go, we are working together until that last minute.”
Many who live in Elwood have evacuated to neighboring towns until the flood waters recede.
As of late Friday afternoon, the river levels are at 32.08 feet. The record is 32.1.
